


waking up

by svitzian



Series: finnpoe fics [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Introspection, M/M, Nightmares, Poe Dameron/Finn Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 12:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21302027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svitzian/pseuds/svitzian
Summary: Finn never thought he might love waking up in the morning this much.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Series: finnpoe fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539958
Comments: 5
Kudos: 143





	waking up

Finn never thought he might love waking up in the morning this much.

* * *

In the Order, waking up was never a good thing.

FN-2187’s earliest memory is waking up. He doesn’t remember the nightmare, but he knows that it must’ve been a bad one, one of the worst things his little five-year-old mind could conjure up.

Maybe there were blasters, like in the videos the Captain made them watch, the ones where people were screaming and music was blaring in the background and the flag of the Order always swept across the screen to symbolize their victory. Those videos were supposed to make them feel good, inspired. They just made FN-2187 feel scared.

Or maybe it was an entirely different type of nightmare. Those happened, too. FN-2187 didn’t have many friends, but he was close with the few that he had. Sometimes he’d dream that they were hurt, or separated from him, and no matter what he tried, there was nothing he could do to help.

And then there was the last type of nightmare—the _worst_ type, as far as FN-2187 thought. Those ones hurt the most, and they made the least sense. There were blasters, yes, but it wasn’t like the other dreams. FN-2187 was always being held—not in a bad way, like some of the cadets did when they said they were just playing but they tackled him _too hard_ and he couldn’t _breathe_. This time, someone was holding him firmly but carefully, like they loved him.

(At least, FN-2187 thought it was like they loved him. He didn’t know much about love. He was supposed to love the Order, like the videos said, but that type of love didn’t feel like it did in his dreams.)

The dream would always end the same. He’d be in those arms, feeling safe, but then the blasters would grow louder and so would the screaming, and something started pulling at him, taking him away from the shadowy figure gripping onto him for dear life. The figure was holding onto him, but whatever was pulling him was too strong, and he couldn’t resist anymore, and—

And he’d wake up sweating, sitting upright in his thin little cot. His first memory was waking up, eyes blown wide and terrified, thin standard-issue blanket tossed to the floor by his thrashing. For a moment, all he saw was blinding fear, _terror_, that whatever was in his dreams was going to reach out and grab him here, now.

But with a few gasping breaths, he came to enough to hear the snoring of the other cadets in the bunkhouse, and the terror began to fade. He was here. The dreams weren’t real, no matter how real they felt. _This_ was real, the chill of ship-filtered air on his skin, the darkness of the barracks, the stiffness of the pillow behind him.

The memory got hazy after that, but he could distantly recall footsteps, one of the older troopers on patrol in the cadet bunks to make sure they weren’t getting up to no good, that they were all getting their required rest. FN-2187 didn’t want to find out what happened if he _wasn’t_ getting his required rest, and so he quickly pulled his thin blanket up from off of the floor, tossing it over his body and turning to curl up in bed again, squeezing his eyes shut and pretending to sleep as the trooper passed by.

FN-2187 got very good at pretending to sleep after that.

* * *

On Jakku, FN-2187—_Finn_—woke up like he had in his very first memory. Terrified, gasping for breath, covered in sweat.

His brain couldn’t process everything that had happened. He was on Jakku again. The battle had happened, his first deployment. Slip. Slip had died, and Finn—FN-2187—hadn’t shot. He hadn’t fired his weapon as ordered. He knew there would be hell to pay, knew he’d be sent to reconditioning or worse, but he couldn’t _do it,_ couldn’t kill someone the same way he’d watched Slip die in front of him.

But he hadn’t been reconditioned. He was on Jakku, with a pilot—a Resistance pilot, _Poe Dameron_. And there was smoke.

Finn didn’t know why he started running. He didn’t know this man. He was Resistance, and Finn was supposed to hate the Resistance. They were war criminals, the Order said, intent on creating chaos, on making the people of the galaxy suffer—

But this one, this pilot, this Resistance war criminal, this _Poe Dameron_, had _helped_ him. Maybe, that little voice of distrust in the back of his brain reasoned, he’d just wanted a way out, a way to survive, but Finn knew it was more than that. This man had given him a name.

_Finn._

So Finn didn’t think. He didn’t stop to assess the situation. He didn’t play back Order protocols in his head. He ran towards that smoking TIE, because Poe Dameron was in there. He had to be, because they were in this together. They’d run from the Order together, had risked their lives together, and Finn wasn’t about to let Poe skip out on him now. Finn couldn’t do this alone.

Poe Dameron had helped him, and without thinking, Finn ran to do the same.

* * *

Finn wakes up very slowly these days.

It usually starts with tossing and turning before he even opens his eyes. Finn searches for a new position, something comfortable enough to coax him back to sleep again, because he feels warm and good and he doesn’t want the feeling to go away. Sometimes he’s lucky, and he’ll slip right back into sleep. Other times, like now, his luck runs out.

He doesn’t always open his eyes right away, even when it’s clear that he’s not going to get any more sleep that morning. He likes it like this, for a bit, likes just feeling Poe’s arm lazily draped over him, listening to the man snore softly. Like this, he can focus more on those little things, no sight to distract him from his other senses.

Eventually, though, he blinks his vision into working again, and somehow, Poe is always the first thing he sees. It’s not always his face, of course. Sometimes it’s his hair, the curls brushing up against Finn’s face so softly that it tickles. Other times it’s a hand dangling over his face after Poe’s randomly thrown it over him at one point in the night. Once, Finn miraculously managed to end up waking up with his face at Poe’s feet after what must’ve been some pretty fantastic sleeping maneuvers. Everytime, though, it’s always _Poe_, and it always stuns Finn for a moment to remember that the man really is right here, right next to him.

Finn usually wakes up first. Poe loves his sleep, snoring and turning into all sorts of awkward positions. While Finn’s gotten used to having a bit more freedom to spread out and a lot more freedom to sleep when he wants to, he still hasn’t totally shaken the Order’s strict schedule. 06:00 sharp, every day.

The lack of rest does tend to bother him later in the day, but right now, it’s the greatest thing in the world. Right now, he just gets to exist—no missions, no chaos in the command room, no stressing about what their next move is in this war that feels like an endless game of holochess. He gets to exist with Poe at his side, because somehow, the galaxy has decided that he deserves this.

He thinks a lot, in those early hours. Most of the time he thinks about good things—whether there will be goldenfruit in the mess hall that day, or whether it might be sunny enough to spend some time in the fresh air today, or what Poe could possibly be dreaming about that makes the corners of his lips twitch upwards into the gentlest of smiles, even in his sleep. He thinks about those things most of the time.

Of course, the bad thoughts come in every so often, because Finn still hasn’t found a way to keep them out forever. Having Poe around has helped, but in a way, it’s also made them worse, because now all the doubts and fears in his mind center around the pilot. He thinks about Poe’s next mission. When he lands back at base, will he have that victorious smile, or the heaviness of defeat written all over his face? Will his body be scraped, or bruised, or broken? Will he come back at all? Maybe it’s selfish, but the thought of waking up alone, of sleeping in a bunk without Poe next to him _terrifies_ him half to death, to the point where he feels his breaths coming quicker.

He’s better at calming down, now, though. He breathes, like Poe has taught him to, like Poe would do with him if he was awake right now. Sometimes he watches the pilot’s chest rise and fall in his sleep and mimics that. He knows that if he were awake, Poe would be soothing him, pressing kisses to his skin and letting his thumbs brush over the back of Finn’s hands. Touch calms him, reminds him that he can feel Poe. If he can feel him, that means Poe is here.

He likes feeling Poe. He likes Poe touching him, likes holding hands and stealing kisses, but he thinks that the touch he likes most of all is _this_—Poe’s arm draped across him, holding him in a loose, sleepy embrace. It feels like something Finn just barely remembers, something that he’s been forced to forget. Someone has held him like this before, so gently and carefully, and it felt good then, just like it feels good now. It feels like _love. _

Finn never thought he would love waking up in the mornings, yet. Here he is, in love, and somehow, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> :)
> 
> hope y'all enjoyed
> 
> hmu on twitter @lascndot


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